At last at last I can say it in public – I’ve been dropping hints for weeks, and I’ve told people off the record, but now I can say it out in the open –

Taslima Nasreen has joined Freethought Blogs.

Here’s a brief bio –

Taslima Nasreen, an award-wining writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.  Taslima Nasreen was born in  Bangladesh. She started writing from the age of 13. Her writings also won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India  in 1992 and 2000. Taslima  won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award   from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France. She became Humanist Laureate from International Academy for Humanism,USA, She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., Erwin Fischer Award from IBKA,Germany, Feminist Press Award, USA .   She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris  and Paris Diderot University  in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar of Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009. Taslima has written  35 books, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in twenty Indian and European languages.Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideals she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been living in exile for more than 17 years.

The excitement around here is Big.